[UncleTupelo]

Hello,

Really like the lesson. As I become a (marginally) better guitar player I am finding the theory side of things more and more interesting as the muscle memory side of things begins to happen intuitively.

Anyway, I have a question about the theory side of the and especially the initial section, as Kirk writes:

The whole thing starts on a strummed I chord, which is a good way of establishing to the ear the key center. From there it moves up semitones in 'tenths'.

So we are in the Key of E which consists of the notes from the E Major Scale:

E F# G# A B C# D# E

and we start with the strummed E, which (having read planetalk!) I know consists of the E (I), G# (III) and B (V) of the E Major Scale. All good.

But then we move up semitones in tenths:



The first semitone move (the F# - second fret on low E String - and the A - the second fret of G String) makes sense. Both notes are in the E Major Scale and counting along I can see that A is ten steps from the F#.

The next semitone move though seems to take us out of the E Major Scale (the G - third fret on low E String - and the A# - the third fret of G String) . Neither G or A# are in the E Major scale, although I can see that they are 'tenths' apart.

The last semitone move fits within the E Major Scale (G# and B).

So my question is - how come this second semitone move sounds ok. How do you decide when and if to move outside of notes in a key?

Cheers

Mat

[Kirk Lorange]

Hi, Mat.

The simple answer is: songs don't have to stay in key to sound good, in fact moving out of key is the best way to keep the listener interested. So, yes, it moves out of key once, then back in, them out again, then back in again. The fact that it does move away from E a couple of times doesn't mean it's not in E ... it returns home after a couple of detours and we're all the more satisfied for it.

You could flesh those tenths out and make a chord of each:

E > B7/F# > Gdim > E7/G#

[UncleTupelo]

Thank you Kirk The problem is probably that I am being too rigid when thinking about keys and scales. The theory side of this is relatively new to me and I still have a lot to learn!

I need to just try stuff out when noodling away without worrying too much about the 'rules'.

Once again thanks for the great learning resource this and the planetalk site provide. Really appreciated.